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Shadowracer · 2009-09-05T09:19:08Z

NOTE-this will be appearing in the printed program on Sun, but thought I'd share early...just to whet the appetites of the CRO faithful. (right now I feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve and can barely contain it. :) )It will be appearing with some photos.For your Saturday morning reading pleasure.....Labor Day Weekend at Delaware......If Only This Old Track Could Talkby Trevor "Shadowracer" Van LeeuwenThe campground is full, the stands are filling in nicely. Soon the cars will be parked all the way down to the road and fans will be shoulder to shoulder in the grandstands. The hot dogs and fries are sizzling, and soon a big field of Late Models will be roaring to life, as they have every Labor Day Weekend since 1981. Excitement comes guaranteed in the most anticipated event of the season. Its the 28th running of the Great Canadian Race. Its been 28 years since Tony Novotny decided to cap the Delaware Late Model season off with a really big race on Labor day weekend. Labor day has always been special here, even dating back to the old quarter mile Supermodified days. So many races. So many victories. So many controversies. So many hearts broken. So much history right here at DelawareIf this old track could talk, it'd tell you about the very first Labor Day race in 1981. Tony Novotny had created his CASCAR series as a way to bring the floundering Ontario Super Late Model scene under a common rules banner, and the capper of the very first series was going to be a 200 lap extravaganza to decide the championship. The fans gathered here, just as we have today, and by the time they'd left the grounds, they knew they'd seen something that no other race fan had ever seen before: The always abrasive, outspoken and cantankerous Don Beiderman...crying.It'd been a tough year for Don. He was one of very few drivers that actually still made his living driving a stock car, and the money was drying up. Times had changed, prize money had not kept pace with expenses, and hauling from track to track looking for a payday wasn't putting much bread on the table any more, even if you were winning. Old Don was beginning to make noises about quitting the game. But he was also in the CASCAR points battle, and the payoff for the Labor Day UAP 200 was impressive. Now, Don always had a fast car, so he was expected to do well. But he had some problems that day. CASCAR qualifying procedure was put together with an eye towards entertainment, and did away with time trials completely. Each competitor had to run 2 heat races, and unfortunately, Don ran into problems in both of his. In the first one he ended up tangling with Dorchester's Steve Knott, and in the second, he ended up running into London's Dave Isen, leaving the familiar blue number 43 with really bad front end damage. That left Beiderman in a bad position, unable to start the consolation race...but he had Knott in his corner.Knott raced back to his shop in Dorchester to get the parts Don needed, but he didn't make it back in time to get Don on the grid for the last chance qualifier. Beiderman was relegated to the non-qualifiers race, but with Knott's parts now bolted in, he won it handily. That still wasn't enough. The only thing winning the non-qualifiers race got you was a spot as the first alternative in the main event. In other words, someone else had to drop out. Which meant Don ended up exactly one spot out of the 200. His day was done. Or was it?It's sketchy what happened next, but its basically accepted that there was a little bit of pitside wheeling and dealing before the race. They rolled out the lineup for the feature and after a couple of parade laps, the last place car, Michigan's Dennis Metapedigan, pulled off the track. Lo and behold, the 43 car joined the field just as the green was about to fall.Don started methodically picking his way through the field and was soon up into the top 10. By the time the race had reached the halfway point, Beiderman was in front. 100 or so laps, and one competition yellow later, Don Beiderman was carrying the checkered flag around the speedway. In victory lane, Don got just a little choked up. Tears of joy at the win, or of relief for making the payout, no one really knows, but fans knew at that point that no one had ever seen cranky old Don Beiderman like this before.The next year, McKerlie Millen took over the title sponsorship of the race, and for many years afterward the race was known as the McKerlie Millen 200. (The Great Canadian Race moniker didn't come until years later.) One thing that slipped through the cracks, and a wrong that hopefully will someday be righted, is the fact that Don was never credited with winning the inaugural 200. The speedway instituted its Wall of Fame at the spectator entrance after a few McKerlie Millen 200s had been run, but the wall only recognized the races run after McKerlie's came on board....

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If Only this old Track Could Talk - Labor Day @ Delaware

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Statsman

Sep 05, 2009 3:35 pm

(@Statsman)

Joined: 1 second ago

Great memories Shadow and entertaining to read too. My part in it was hardly worth mentioning. Hope there is a great race there this weekend.

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